The Genomics Core was established in January 2001 and provides consultation, training and technical assistance for the principal components of a gene expression profiling experiment, analysis of genomic DMA and quantitative PCR. The facility personnel consists of Dr.Agnes Viale, core head, six research assistants, a database administrator/bioinformatics expert, and an administrative assistant. This core supports the Aftymetrix, Illumina, Agilent and custom spotted array platforms. The services offered are ranging from nucleic acid extraction to preliminary data analysis. For transcription profiling experiments, comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) and Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) analysis, investigators are assisted during experimental design, sample preparation and labeling, hybridization, array post processing, image analysis. A weekly training for specific software (GCOS, Genespring, CGH-analytics) is also opened to the users of the core. The core's servers and workstations are connected to the MSKCC network, allowing investigators to access their data remotely. Integrity of the database is under the responsibility of full-time computational biologist/database administrator. The GC developed stringent preprocessing quality controls and instituted technical standard operation procedures to ensure that the GC generated homogeneous datasets of extremely high quality. Since its inception, the GC has enjoyed an exponential growth in the number of users and accordingly, in the number of samples that were processed.